Peach Blossoms | park jinyoung

Chapter 7 - Business partner

Sooyeon stared at her phone. It still wasn't registering to her that she had met JJProject in her little cafe only 24 hours ago. She chewed hard on her metal chopsticks, unable to concentrate on her meal in the school cafeteria. She had texted "Hi!" back to Jaebeom, but she was sweating nervously and wondering if the exclamation mark was too much.

Suddenly the screen changed to Seen by prdsdef and Sooyeon's jaw dropped.

"What are you staring at?" Hyejeong pulled up a chair next to Sooyeon and put her tray on the table.

Sooyeon jumped at the sound of Hyejeong's voice and clumsily flipped her phone upside down. Hyejeong caught the gesture and smiled slyly at Sooyeon. "Ouuu, did you find a new boy?! Let me see!" She reached out to grab Sooyeon's phone, but Sooyeon was faster.

Sooyeon laughed nervously and shoved her phone into her pocket. "Haha of course not Hyejeong. Since when do I have time for a boy?"

Hyejeong retracted her hand, nodding agreement. "Yeah I guess so. Where would you find the time to date considering you go back and forth between working and loving Jinyoung," she nibbled at her rice slowly. "Oh yeah, let me show you the slogan designs I made last night," Hyejeong pulled out her bag. Her back was always minimalistic but cute; a black leather bag with two Jaebeom keychains on each zipper.

Sooyeon noticed a giant camera bag next to Hyejeong. She immediately knew what that meant.

"Hyeojeong, JB has another schedule today?" Sooyeon abruptly remembered that Hyejeong was an old Jaebeom fansite. She became confused, realizing that she hadn't seen her friend around the cafe the day before.

"Mhmm," Hyejeong hummed next to her, completely focused on her laptop.

"Oh, why didn't I see you at the cafe yesterday? JJ Project was ther-"

Hyejeong shot up from her chair. "JJ Project was WHERE?!" She looked down at Sooyeon's shocked face and sat back down, inching her chair closer to her.

"Uh- yesterday near my cafe they were shooting something," Sooyeon responded, blinking at Hyejeong's sudden reaction. She was surprised that her friend had missed such a big schedule.

Hyejeong ran her fingers through her hair, gripping tightly as she did so. Her eyes became unfocused. Sooyeon waved her hand in front of Hyejeong in order to gain a reaction.

"I can't believe I missed them, they were so close to me," Hyejeong said weakly. "I'm so dumb!" She smacked her head on the table.

Sooyeon panicked, trying to find something to cheer her friend up with. Now was not a good time to tell her about her encounter with JJ Project.

"Hey, you said JB has a schedule today right? Why don't we go check that out? You can take lots of pretty pictures!" Sooyeon rambled.

Hyejeong raised her head slowly. "Well yeah I guess," she sniffled. "Jaebeom actually has to go record a radio segment today."

Sooyeon knew the only way to cheer Hyejeong up was to remind her of JB in any way she could. "Alright, come on! Let's go then!"

Hyejeong sighed and began packing up her things. "I still can't believe I missed them. Can you imagine? Bumping into JJ Project on the street coincidentally? Who knows, they may have even stopped by your cafe. Ugh why are we so unlucky!!" Hyejeong stormed off to the bus stop out of anger, leaving Sooyeon behind.

Sooyeon gulped. "Yeah, super unlucky," she yelled to Hyejeong before jogging to catch up.

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"Why are you wearing a mask...?" Hyejeong asked while waiting outside of the radio station building. There were a few other fansites there, but not that many. There was still an hour before Jaebeom was to arrive.